Question

What were the impact of Persian invasions on Indian culture?

Answer 1

Answer:

In the sixth century B.C. when Magadha was striving to build up an extensive empire in India, invasions of foreigners started on the north-west frontier. The first who tried to penetrate into India were the Persians and the next were Greeks who entered India under their famous ruler and conqueror, Alexander of Macedonia.

India had relations with Persia or Iran in ancient times. The Aryans who settled in India belonged to the same racial stock which had first entered Persia. The similarity in language and gods of the Rig-vedic Indian Aryans, with those of Persia, prove that India and Persia had maintained mutual contacts in those days.However, there is no evidence of mutual contacts between the Indians and the Persians during the later Vedic age. Of course, Jataka stories refer to trade relations between India and Persia but before the sixth century B.C. we are on an uncertain ground to probe the relations between the two.

Information regarding the relations of these two countries has been derived from the writings of Greek scholars like Herodotus, Strabo and Arrian, though they are not unanimous in their descriptions. However, it is universally accepted that the first political contact of India with the Persians started during the reign of the Persian emperor Cyrus (588-530 B.C.). Cyrus established a great empire in Persia.

He attacked the north-western part of India and annexed to his empire the territories lying west of the river Indus which included the valley of Kabul and hilly regions of Hindukush mountains including Gandhara. The son and successor of Cyrus, Cambyses (530-522 B.C.) could not pay any attention towards India. The successor of Cambyses Darius-I (522-486 B.C.), however, conquered North Punjab.

The inscriptions at Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustom mention northern Punjab as a part of the Darius empire. Herodotus also described that Darius had sent a naval expedition under Scylax to explore the Indus and Punjab was the twentieth satrapa (province) of the empire of Darius.